Less than 1% of HealthCare.gov registrants finish enrollment: report

By Russ Britt

In case you missed it…..

Fewer than 1% of those trying to register for health insurance under President Obama’s health-care overhaul actually were able to complete the enrollment process during the first week of business at HealthCare.gov.

That was the finding earlier this week by Millard Brown Digital, a researcher that surveyed visitors to the website, rapidly becoming a thorn in the side of supporters of the Affordable Care Act.

Complaints being unable to get insurance using the website have been numerous in the 17 days it has been up and running. For the most part, visitors are unable to get very far in the enrollment process, often not getting past the first few registration pages — a problem that persists.

As Millard’s chart at left shows, there were 9.5 million unique visitors to HealthCare.gov, with 5.7 million visiting the individual marketplace from Oct. 1 to Oct. 5. Millard Brown estimates 3.7 million tried to register and 1 million of those completed registration.

From there the numbers plummet into the thousands. Successful log-in was achieved by 271,000 users, 196,000 of which began enrollment. And of those, 36,000 actually completed the enrollment process. That works out to 0.97% of the 3.7 million who tried to register.

The researcher determined traffic fell 88% from HealthCare.gov’s first week to its second, based on what it calls the website’s daily reach. Officials said the daily reach dropped that much between Oct. 1 and Oct. 13.

Millard Brown’s findings were disclosed earlier this week and publicized by the web site Kantar U.S. Insights.

In an email, Health and Human Services officials said the figures quoted by Millard Brown were not accurate, adding they would have more accurate data when they release October enrollment figures in the middle of November. It was unclear whether those figures would break out weekly statistics.

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